The Realms of Mystery 



MYSTERY inspires fear, as children are 

 afraid in the dark, and fear is an incen- 

 tive to knowledge. Fear, not fright, 

 awakens keen and serious curiosity, desire to know. 

 The most timid animals are the most curious. A 

 bulldog never investigates. He is firm in his con- 

 victions. No hunted animal can be so alarmed by 

 the presence or suspicion of danger that it will not 

 pause to inquire. There is no knowledge so essen- 

 tial to life as the knowledge of good and evil. 

 Those who know, survive; those who do not, 

 perish. An ancient sage urged this thought in an 

 immortal maxim: "The fear of the Lord is the 

 beginning of wisdom." 



Mind, as well as nature, "abhors a vacuum." 

 Man and the higher animals below him people mys- 

 tery with creatures of the imagination, and these, 

 because mystery is in itself fearful, are always more 

 or less so. Man also wishes to vindicate his cour- 

 age by justifying his fears. For these reasons all 

 primitive superstitions and religions are filled with 

 images both grotesque and dreadful; and these, 

 when he would represent them pictorially or in 

 wood or stone, are esteemed to have merit in pro- 

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